Robocalls, the controversy thought forgotten by many hopeful Conservatives, is back. With the ruling party preoccupied with byelections in Durham, Victoria and Calgary, the timing could be deadly. As electors in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta reflect on their choices in the Nov. 26 vote, headlines about the scandal — carrying with them squalid allegations about how Cons conned their way to majority control — may have seriously unhelpful consequences for Stephen Harper’s party.

In Calgary, in particular, the latest developments have left unhappy Conservatives even unhappier. Calgary Centre is ground zero for modern Canadian conservativism. There, a gormless Conservative candidate — who has dodged debates and the media, while actually calling our largest trading partner “a basket case” — is teetering on the edge of a humiliating defeat. The news about the robocalls controversy, long dormant, is happening on multiple fronts. Elections Canada has now announced its intention to probe the practice. The federal elections body plans to develop a discussion paper on robocalling, as well as a national survey “to gather insights into Canadians’ opinions and attitudes regarding political parties’ and candidates’ practice in communicating with electors.” (We’ll save them some money: Voters don’t like it.)

Last summer, as you may recall, Elections Canada reported receiving nearly 1,400 complaints about misleading or harassing phone calls across Canada. Investigators started digging into the scandal, which centred on robocall activity in Guelph, Ont. Meanwhile, e-mails obtained under the Access to Information Act and released in recent days, provide an appalling glimpse into the vote-rigging scandal. One Elections Canada official wrote: “The polling station numbers given out by the Conservative party ... are all wrong.” Another e-mail, by the same official: “The workers in the returning office think these people (the Conservatives) are running a scam.”

Thirteen other ridings were experiencing the same thing: Complaints from citizens, indicating they were being deliberately sent to the wrong polling station. When Elections Canada raised the matter with the Conservative Party’s lawyer, he eventually denied wrongdoing. But the Tory lawyer apparently acknowledged that the campaigns were indeed making calls to voters about the location of polling stations.

The fact that the robocall investigation is taking a very long time should surprise no one.

Elections Canada has had its budget systematically slashed by the Harper cabal, almost certainly because the conservative regime dislikes suggestions it has cheated its way to power.

Something was seriously wrong in the May 2011 election. And the Conservative Party of Canada is at the epicentre of it.

In fairness, the Conservatives aren’t the only party that engages in robocalls — Ontario Liberal leadership hopefuls Kathleen Wynne and Glen Murray have made use of them in recent days, too.

And no one is saying that all robocalls are illegal, or should be.

But making calls to citizens to provide them with false information about voting (if that turns out to be what happened) is more than an annoyance. It’s fraud.

And for Harper’s Conservatives, the timing of the latest robocall headlines couldn’t be worse.

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In the long and storied history of Canadian politics, has there been anything – anything at all – as consistently disgusting and repellant and loathsome as the Canadian Senate? Has there been any political institution that has been so deserving of being dragged into the public square, and executed for all to see? Ask yourself: is there?

In May 1939, the ocean liner St. Louis departed Hamburg with nearly 1,000 Jews onboard. They were heading to Cuba to escape Nazi persecution. When they arrived in Havana two weeks later, every Jew aboard was denied entry.